Data independent hierarchies

A relational or table oriented form for hierarchies is defined and algorithms for translating hierarchical requests into accesses against that form and back again to hierarchical form are discussed. The symmetries inherent to a relational representation can then be used to support various transforms of the hierarchy from the same stored data. This scheme can be implemented on any system capable of supporting tables and is intended to provide data independent access for hierarchies based on a table oriented conceptual schema support system.